


How Flowers Bloom In The Wake Of Destruction

by batthegrinch



Category: The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
Genre: Age Difference, F/M, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Nightmares, Romance, survivor's guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 10:11:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16135097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batthegrinch/pseuds/batthegrinch
Summary: Liesel Meminger and Max Vandenburg healing after the war.





	How Flowers Bloom In The Wake Of Destruction

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Book Thief fanfic, and I hope you guys like it!

For Liesel Meminger, the early stages of 1949 could be easily summed up like this:

She became twenty years of age. Her smile was no longer starving, and it was no longer a rarity. She had finally moved to Sydney, Australia. And the man with swampy eyes and feathers of hair was on her bed. Again.

 

*** * *  Q &A * * ***

**How did Max**

**Vandenburg end up**

**In Liesel Meminger’s bed?**

**He fell. However this time,**

**the Jewish Fistfighter**

**was not sick.**

 

There were no varying opinions on how Max Vandenburg ended up laying breathless on Liesel’s bed. The Book Thief, the Word Shaker, the little _Saumensch_ herself pushed him there. Giggling. Liesel Meminger had the audacity to giggle as she pushed Max Vandenburg onto her piles of books and blankets that made her bed. But those blankets. They felt like clouds underneath his rough fingertips. Liesel’s blankets smelled of her. It reminded Max that he was alive. And that he was with Liesel, the girl who had once reminded him of how the sun felt on his skin, and what the air was like to breathe. Only Liesel wasn’t a girl anymore. And Max didn’t have to hide anymore.

*** * *  A NOTE FROM YOUR NARRATOR  * * ***

**In all actuality, Liesel’s**

**blankets would also become**

**Max’s blankets.** **_Their_ ** **blankets.**

**They just didn’t know it yet.**

“Liesel,” Max said as she flopped next to him, German blonde hair falling in a halo around her shoulders, the taste of words and ink and hope on her lips.

“Max,” Liesel said. And her voice. Her voice was such a healing sound. The words that streamed out of her mouth like the sun helped to mend his wounds. Hands, fire, gas, whips, and basements had broken him. But dear God, Liesel and her snowmen and her smiles and her warmth and her books and her words and her voice had stitched him back together. She was alive. And he was alive. And he had her. And she had him. And together, they healed.  

“Read to me,” Max whispered, his swampy eyes looking into her chocolate ones.

And so she did. Liesel reached under him and pulled out one of her thousands of books. _The Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales._

“Chapter One: The Golden Bird.” Liesel was such a smooth reader now, the words flowing out of her mouth as if she was born with a book clutched in her hands. “A certain king had a beautiful garden, and in the garden stood a tree which bore golden apples. These apples were always counted, and about the time when they began to grow ripe it was found that every night one of them was gone…”

*** * * SOME THOUGHTS * * ***

**OF MAX VANDENBURG**

**Our favorite Jewish Fistfighter**

**knew, by this point in his**

**life, that he was in love with**

**the Book Thief. He just didn’t**

**know that she was in love**

**with him too.**

When Liesel was done the first chapter, she drank in the sight of Max. His arms were toned, his push-ups and sit-ups were giving him some muscle. His hair, still feathery, was speckled with hints of gray. His eyes, a swamp living in both of them, were closed. A thin smile graced his lips as Liesel’s silence continued on.

“Liesel, I can feel you staring at me,” Max said, opening his eyes and looking at her.

“Oh,” Liesel said. She could feel her cheeks heating up. A light rosy pink dusted her face.

 _“Ja_ \- yes.” Max swallowed hard at the sight of her blush. Then he quickly said, “Liesel, one day I’m going to take you apple picking.”

Liesel, words suddenly failing her, continued to read, a small smile gracing her lips at Max’s words. The two of them, friends who were awkwardly in love with each other, read until they fell asleep on Liesel’s blankets, which were made out of a hopeful future.

For Liesel, the warmth of Max, and the knowledge that his feathery hair and swampy eyes and 5 o’clock shadow were right next to her, breathing and alive, was enough to keep her nightmares - at least the bad ones - at bay.

However, not even Max Vandenburg could get Liesel’s brother or the boy who was destined to have lemon hair forever, out of her dreams.

Liesel, though the main reason of Max’s survival, could not, despite her German blonde hair and chocolate eyes and full smile, keep his nightmares away. Every night, the visions of leaving his family, of piles of dead Jews, of pillars of smoke, of soul-crushing hunger, of leaving Liesel and the street named after heaven, of walking and crying and Liesel calling out for him and him kissing her palms, danced across his mind.

*** * *  A LATE NIGHT CONVERSATION  * * ***

**_Liesel:_ ** **“Tell me. What did you see this time?”**

 **_Max:_ ** **“You, Liesel. I saw you.”**

 **_Liesel:_ ** **“Me?”**

**She was shocked, still not fully realizing that**

**she also haunted the man she loved so much.**

**_Max:_ ** **“You, when I kissed your palms, during the march.**

**When you got kicked and manhandled and whipped. When**

**I was so helpless I couldn’t even protect you.”**

**_Liesel:_ ** **“Max, you’ve always protected me.” A pause.**

**“I’m sorry.”**

**_Max:_ ** **“You saved me. It is I who should be apologizing to you.”**

 **_Liesel:_ ** **“Never feel the need to apologize to me for saving you.**

**I would do it again, if I had to.”**

**Max Vandenburg really wanted to kiss Liesel Meminger,**

**but he didn’t. He allowed her read to him until they**

**both fell back asleep, a tangle of limbs.**

When Liesel Meminger woke up the next morning, there was a painting on her bedroom wall, and an empty spot where Max Vandenburg should have been. He was cooking breakfast for them, and Liesel could smell it. But that act of kindness was not what made Liesel Meminger’s heart throb.

The painting, which displayed a young, blonde German woman, and a slightly older, feathery-haired Jewish man holding hands as they tightrope walked towards a huge, heavenly, pink rose that radiated like the sun. The image made flowers bloom in Liesel’s chest even though no art critic would think that it was any semblance of good. But to Liesel, Max’s painting was too beautiful to look directly at, yet she couldn’t peel her eyes away from it.

Humans are so emotional, so self destructive.

*** * *  SOME THOUGHTS * * ***

**OF LIESEL MEMINGER**

**She wanted to scream:**

**_Look at this painting!_ **

**_This beautiful, wonderful, painting!_ **

**_My boy, my beautiful boy,_ **

**_He paints the flowers and_ **

**_the entire universe for me._ **

That morning, Liesel Meminger and Max Vandenburg shared their first kiss. And what a wonderful kiss it was. And to think it was all because of a painting. A painting that a sleep deprived Jew created when the words that had so craftily healed him disappeared into the void of sleep.

 

*** * *  A NOTE ABOUT  * * ***

**THEIR GERMAN AND JEWISH KISS**

**It was comprised of three main things:**

****1\. The taste of books and words and ink** **

**2\. Flowers blooming in the wake of destruction**

**3\. The roughness of Max’s lips**

“You are a wonder, Liesel,” Max whispered as they pulled away. And Liesel smiled. Oh, how she smiled. It nearly blinded Max. That’s how bright she smiled.

“One could say the same thing about you, Max.” Now, it was Max’s face that turned a light shade of rosy pink. Liesel giggled at his blush. Giggled for God’s sake. It was Max’s turn for a heart throb. When Liesel kissed him again, he laughed. The same laugh of absolute joy and hope and wonder that he let out when she had walked down the steps of the Hubermann home with a snowman in her arms. It was the sound of a miracle.

“Liesel, I love you.”

“I know.”

“Liesel,” Max said, “I was being serious.”

“Don’t pout, you _Dummkopf_ \- idiot,” Liesel whispered, her voice now earnest as well “I love you more than words can express.”

Max grinned, “That’s a lot of love.”

“You’re beautiful,” Liesel said simply, “of course I love you that much.”

Max’s heart skipped a beat at what Liesel had told him. He was so in love with her. He knew, from the depths of his soul, that Liesel Meminger would never leave him.

*** * *  A DEFINITION NOT FOUND  * * ***

**IN A DICTIONARY**

**_Not Leaving:_ ** **An act of trust and love,**

**often deciphered by children, which**

**includes Book Thieves and**

**Jewish Fistfighters alike**

For Liesel Meminger, the early stages of 1950 could be easily summed up like this:

She was now twenty-one years of age. Her first book, dedicated to the boy with lemon hair - his name was still too painful to write - was published, and the love of her life, a man with feathers of hair and swampy eyes, finally moved into her apartment.

*** * *  A NOTE FROM YOUR NARRATOR  * * ***

**Upon Max’s arrival to Liesel’s**

**small apartment, her blankets became their**

**blankets. Max and Liesel shared a life, and it was**

**only a matter of time before they shared**

**blankets made of clouds.**

The world that Liesel and Max shared together was filled of books and pens and ink and nightmares and healing and warmth. Liesel’s voice was still the most comforting thing in Max’s life. And to Liesel, Max was everything that a home should be. And more.

It was April when Max finally took Liesel apple picking, like he had promised to do the previous year. Her cheeks were rosy from the crispness of the day, her German blonde hair was slowly falling out of the bun that sat atop of her head.

“I can’t believe I’m picking apples,” Liesel hummed into the orange air. “It’s the first time I’ve done this legally.”  

Max chuckled. “Liesel, do I even want to know what that means?”

“Rudy,” Liesel said quietly, her voice trailing off as Max stiffened, his face softened as he looked at her. She cleared her throat and continued, “We were so hungry during the summers. We stole apples from farmers.”

And thus, the tradition of apple picking during the month of April was born.

It was April of 1950, and Liesel Meminger could finally speak about her past. It was April of 1950, and Max Vandenburg wished he could speak about his.

*** * *  A COMMENT FROM YOUR NARRATOR  * * ***

**Max Vandenburg would never be**

**able to talk about**

**death camps and fires and ashes and**

**and every horror that he had**

**seen. Some traumas were just too**

**painful to speak about. He**

**would write about them instead.**

It was late April of 1950, when Max and Liesel talked about the men that plagued their dreams. The Word Shaker was not the only person that Max Vandenburg had shared his heart with, and the Jewish Fistfighter was not the only boy that Liesel Meminger had loved.

 

*** * *  Another Late Night Conversation  * * ***

**_Max:_ ** **“You dream of Rudy, don’t you?”**

 **_Liesel:_ ** **“Of course. And you dream of**

**Walter, don’t you?”**

**_Max:_ ** **“Liesel…” A pause. “I’m sorry.”**

 **_Liesel:_ ** **“What for?”**

 **_Max:_ ** **“I loved him, Liesel. Like I love you, like**

**how you loved Rudy.”**

**_Liesel:_ ** **“And why would you be**

**sorry for that?”**

**_Max:_ ** **“It wasn’t right.”**

 **_Liesel_ ** **, whispering: “Max Vandenburg, you**

**can’t help who you fall in love with.”**

**_Max:_ ** **“Thank you, Liesel.”**

 **_Liesel:_ ** **“I love you, Max.”**

 **_Max:_ ** **“I know.”**

 **_Liesel_ ** **: “You’re such a saukerl.”**

 **_Max:_ ** **“You know I love you more than life, Liesel.”**

It was April of 1950 and while Max Vandenburg could not speak about his past, he could finally come to terms with the love he had for a man, a Nazi, a savior, a friend: Walter Kugler

Max Vandenburg wrote down his most important memories in notebooks. Words spilled out of him until no more could be clumsily poured onto paper.

*** * *  MAX VANDENBURG’S SIX * * ***

**MOST IMPORTANT MEMORIES**

****1\. The taste of regret that came with refusing to learn how** **

**to play the accordion**

****2\. His final Fistfight with Walter Kugler that ended with a** **

**kiss that tasted of blood and brawls and stubborn love**

****3\. The day in which he survived by leaving his family to die** **

**4\. When he gave Liesel The Standover Man, his first story**

**5\. The march to Dachau, where Liesel called for him**

**and he kissed her palms and cried into her hands**

****6\. When he found Liesel after the war, and they hugged** **  

**and cried and fell to the floor**

He would share his memories with Liesel, the woman he was so in love with that it made his chest feel as if it were bursting. They would cry together. And they would heal together. And like flowers, they bloomed.

*** * *  A NOTE ABOUT MAX VANDENBURG  * * ***

**Healing for him was like fighting the Führer in**

**the Hubermann’s basement: always an uphill battle.**

**He rarely ever truly won, but**

**Liesel Meminger was always there for him.**

**And he was always there for her, even while**

**throwing wild punches at his past.**

Max Vandenburg was sprawled out on the bed he shared with Liesel Meminger. His fingertips were stained with ink, his eyes were huge and swampy, and his feathers of hair were more than just sprinkled with gray. Liesel was laying with her head on his chest, her German blonde hair making Max’s shirt glow. The blankets under them were beautiful and soft. Like clouds. It was late. The outside sky was black. Blacker than the ink and words that created our Book Thief.  

“Max,” Liesel whispered.

 _“Ja_ \- yes, Liesel?”

“I’m afraid.”

“Of what, Liesel?”

“Of sleeping, Max.”

Max Vandenburg sat up in their bed. Liesel sat up next to him. He held her cold fingers with his inky ones. He kissed her German fingertips, and murmured words of love.

“I’m going to read to you, Liesel,” Max said quietly, his voice soft. “And if you fall asleep, I will shake you until you wake up.”

“Thank you,” Liesel said softly. And Max kissed her. Their kiss tasted like wishes finally coming true.

“Liesel, do not thank me for this,” Max said, his voice kind. “I want to help you, like how you help me.”

“Max,” Liesel said, her fingers tracing through his feathers of hair. His name on her lips was like a prayer.

“Liesel,” Max said. They smiled at each other. Awkward smiles full of love and hope.

 

*** * *  A NOTE ABOUT LIESEL MEMINGER  * * ***

**Healing for her was not a fistfight. It was**

**books; it was writing; it was the**

**ink in pens and the petals of**

**flowers**

Warmth grew in Liesel’s chest as Max pulled her close, kissed her, and opened a book. She really was in love with Max Vandenburg, with his fistfighting, and with his storytelling, and with his everything in between.

“Hansel and Grethel,” Max began. His voice washed over Liesel, bathed her in comfort.

“Hard by a great forest dwelt a poor wood-cutter with his wife and his two children. The boy was called Hansel and the girl Grethel. He had little to bite and to break, and once when great scarcity fell on the land, he could no longer procure daily bread…”

*** * *  A DEFINITION NOT FOUND * * ***

**IN A DICTIONARY**

**_Reading Aloud_ ** **: An act of healing and love,**

**often deciphered by survivors who suffer**

**from insomnia**

For Liesel Meminger, the early stages of 1951 could be easily summed up like this:

She became twenty-two years of age. She worked part-time at the local bookstore. Her second book, dedicated to her brother, was published. And the man with swampy eyes and feathers of hair was sitting on their bed. Not an uncommon occurrence.

“Liesel.”

“Max.”

“Show me that I’m going to make it.” His voice was hoarse. He looked so broken. _“Please.”_

Liesel said nothing, just cupped his face in her hands. Rubbed her thumb over his bearded jawline. Kissed him hard. Their kiss wasn’t beautiful. It wasn’t wonderful. It tasted of desperation and survivor’s guilt.

*** * *  SOME THOUGHTS ON RECOVERY * * ***

**Some days are better, healthier,**

**livelier than others.**

**Healing is not a linear process.**

At the bookstore, other woman Liesel’s age worked. They gossiped about the latest neighborhood scandals, whispered about boys, and complained about work. Liesel listened to them, interacted with them, but never added anything to their conversations.

On this day, a Thursday, Liesel was reading a play behind the counter when the bell that signaled the opening of the front door rang. Stooped under the doorway was the Jewish Fistfighter with feathers of hair and swampy eyes. In his hands was a brown paper bag.

“Max,” Liesel said, smiling. “What are you doing here?”

“It was my lunch break at work,” Max replied softly, making his way to the counter that Liesel stood behind, “and you forgot your lunch at home. I figured we could share mine.”

“You’re sweet, Max.”

His eyes looked down at the book she was reading. “Lady Windermere’s Fan” _._ Oscar Wilde.

“Is it any good?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Liesel said, chocolate eyes boring into Max’s swampy ones. “I’ve only just started it.” Max grinned at her. She got a coworker to take her counter place. Their lunch break was a beautiful one.

When Liesel got back to work after lunch, Max opened the door for her and then kissed her cheek before leaving, and the women she worked with questioned her.

“Who is he?”

“Why haven’t you told us about him? He’s seducing you, isn’t he?”

“Is he always that cute?”

“His name is Max,” Liesel said quietly as she returned to her play. “And he’s the man I’m going to marry.”

*** * *   A NOTE FROM YOUR NARRATOR  * * ***

**Liesel was correct in her statement.**

**Max Vandenburg was indeed the man she was going to marry.**

In April of 1951, Max Vandenburg took Liesel Meminger apple picking for the second time. It was autumn, the leaves crunched beneath their feet, and the sky was different hues of oranges, yellows, pinks, and reds. Liesel looked so beautiful with her hair blowing in the wind, her face rosy from the cold, her lips oddly chapped. Max smiled at her as he tossed her an apple. She laughed, and put it in their basket.

“How has work been?” Max asked, almost sheepishly.

“They talk about you,” Liesel said, smiling one of her secret smiles.

“About me?” Max asked and threw her another apple.

“Yes,” Liesel said. Then she added, rather timidly, “They think you’re seducing me.” Max appeared to choke on the air around him. He could feel his face heating up.

“Liesel,” Max said, looking at the ink on his fingertips, “we’re together. I can’t possibly be seducing you.”

“If you’re not seducing me, Max,” Liesel said, a wicked smirk dancing on her lips, “then what would you call what happened last night?”

Max let loose a strangled laugh, “Liesel Meminger.”

“Max Vandenburg.”

“Sometimes I cannot believe you say the things that come out of your mouth.”

“Dance with me,” Liesel said.

Max looked at her as if she hung the sun in the sky, “Liesel, we’re in the middle of an orchard, you’re holding a basket of apples, and there’s no music.”

“Max,” Liesel said, “that sounds like a lot of excuses to not dance with the little minx you’re currently seducing.”

Max laughed. "If anything, Liesel," he said, "you're seducing me."  

Liesel put down her basket of apples. And they danced through the crisp autumn air, the colors of the sky mixing with their happiness.

 

*** * *  A NOTE ABOUT MAX AND LIESEL * * ***

**Secretly, Max Vandenburg liked the idea of seducing Liesel Meminger.**

**Perhaps he liked the truth of the idea.**

**Or**

**Perhaps he liked the flirtatiousness of it.**

In May of 1951, Max Vandenburg was dressed in his best suit, and Liesel Meminger wore a deep red dress. It pinched her waist and flared out at the knees. Her hair was done up in a bunch of twists and knots that made her blonde German hair look like the tightrope Max had painted in their bedroom. Max adored her hair. To be frank, Max simply adored Liesel.

The German and the Jew were going on a date.

I know, it sounds like the start of a bad joke, but it was no joke to Liesel and Max.

*** * *  THE DATE BETWEEN  * * ***

**THE GERMAN AND THE JEW**

**Max and Liesel’s date was**

**comprised of three main points:**

****1\. Soft words spoken on a bench in town** **

**2\. The different colors of the sunset**

**3\. A book, containing a ring**

 

Yes, Max Vandenburg, once a piece of Jewish scum, now a Jewish survivor, proposed to the pretty German woman by the name of Liesel Meminger in May of 1951. They were sitting on a park bench in town. The sky’s colors were mixing and melting together like a child’s drawing. The Jewish Fistfighter handed the Word Shaker a book wrapped in the most delicate of paper.

“Max?” Liesel asked, looking at the man sitting next to her.

“Please, just open it,” Max said, voice soft and swampy eyes huge.

So she did. In her hands was an old copy of _The Dream Carrier_ , the book that Liesel had read to Max, so many years ago, when he was cold and melting in her bed all at the same time. On the cover, tied to the book in thin pink rope was a small, diamond ring. Nothing fancy, nothing special. But to Liesel Meminger, the ring was the third most beautiful thing she had ever seen, and she could feel her heart bursting.

*** * *  THE BOOK THIEF’S LIST  * * ***

**OF BEAUTIFUL THINGS**

****1\. Max Vandenburg, the Jewish Fistfighter himself** **

**And**

****2\. The painting Max made; the catalyst for their** **  

**very first kiss**

“Liesel Meminger,” Max Vandenburg asked, his voice hoarse and raw and beautiful, “Marry me?”

Liesel nodded fervently, words escaping her yet again. They hugged and kissed and cried and watched as the colors of the sunset swirled into the night.

They breathed.

_German and Jewish lungs._

 


End file.
